


Stories of Our Lives

by shadow_in_the_shade



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Gonna trigger warn/ tag each chapter individually, Ladies of the Musketeers, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-16 21:43:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7285807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow_in_the_shade/pseuds/shadow_in_the_shade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of shorts, exploring what happened to various of the minor female characters of The Musketeers after their episode ended. Chapter one, Celine, set just after "Musketeers Don't Die Easily" Currently planning chapters for Emilie, Samara, Fleur, Camille and Pepin's daughter, with others to be added.</p><p>Also Milady makes appearances in more peoples lives than she probably should. </p><p>Gonna tag and trigger warn each chapter individually at the start because they're all gonna be so different, hence not using any archive warnings but please do check for triggers cause some lives are kinda grim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Celine

**Trigger warnings in this chapter for abuse, prostitution alcoholism, attempted suicide and Stockholm syndrome**.

**Celine**

_What do I do now?_ she thinks. _Where do I go?_ Salt tears slipping down her cheeks, stinging her broken face and dragging blood down her neck. She stumbles down the streets almost sightlessly, not knowing where she is or where she is going, not sure if she has ever known these things, not sure if she will ever know again without someone always there to tell her, whatever payment they demand. _Who do I turn to?_ she thinks, and inevitably – _Who will help me now?_

Head still thick from wine – her head is _always_ thick from wine – she reels, reaching for the walls of buildings and bridges to steady herself. She hears only dimly around her the people shouting – shouting at the shambling, stumbling wreck to get out of their way. She barely equates the shouts and the names they hurl around with something that might be directed to her. She has been sightless, groping in a dark fog all her life.

She does not know how long or how far she walks, face ringing, head throbbing, heart aching. That always seemed important to her, at least a little; the ache and the straining beat of her own heart. _But,_ she hears his voice in her head clearer than she hears her own – _love doesn’t pay the bills, does it?_ She thinks she will hear that now for as long as she lives, negating her own heartbeat, denying her right to feel.

She is not sure when it became dark or when the rushing in her head and ears became audible all around her but in the grey failing light she becomes aware of the river rushing beneath her, stronger than she will ever be. And suddenly it is all very clear. She has heard that the early morning boatmen get a few sous for every body they drag out of the Seine. So then. Let her at least be another few sous in one more life before the world is done with her for good. She could be done with it.

She grips the stone, looking down at the white water swirling and crashing below her. She has never felt braver or more proud of herself. Could it be she has made a decision all on her own? It may be for the first time in her life. The irony of its being the last is lost on her. She smiles, dries her eyes with her sleeve, looks at the blood on her cuff _(you’ll never be beautiful again)_ and nods to herself.

It is the right decision. She climbs onto the ledge, inching her feet towards the drop. She feels a sudden wild sensation of elation, exhilaration and terror, a feeling like flying, and then she is being dragged roughly back towards the pavement and she is angry, fighting it, at the same time shocked and terrified that she might fall and die, furious at her rescuer for endangering her like this.

“Let me go!” she squirms, scratching like an angry cat, crying again from the sucker punch of anti-climax – “Let me go! Put me down!”

“Don’t be so damn stupid.”

The voice is cool, bored even, vaguely irritated at best. She turns around in surprise because she _knows_ that voice, someone she hated before they had ever met –

“You –” she stares, shaken, shocked. It is her, the girl Sarazin called Magpie, who he called so many things, the lady who called herself Milady de Winter. What is she doing here? Lack of understanding – a feeling so familiar to her habitually addled brain – comes as a terrible blow after that earlier height of exhilaration. She begins to cry messily, sitting on the pavement with her back against the side of the bridge.

“Why did you follow me?” she whimpers “Why did you care?”

“I didn’t,” she says. “And I don’t, particularly – but here I am and here you are and I think it’s best Sarazin doesn’t ruin any more lives don’t you?”

She blinks indignantly, suddenly defensive.

“I _loved_ him,” she sniffs, as though it means something.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I did, though.” It is the only thing she ever gets stubborn about. “How would _you_ know?”

“Oh I’d know,” she gives a short bitter huff of a laugh – “Believe me. I’d know. I don’t know what you call it but _love_ is not it.”

“He never loved me,” Celine sniffs again. “He said I was beautiful but he never loved me.”

“Incapable of love, that one,” her voice is cracked from side to side – “Well, he was lucky perhaps.”

“He loved _you,”_ she says, accusingly, wondering how she dares. “He always talked about you.”

“Oh darling,” she drawls “That wasn’t love, not ever, trust me, love doesn’t let you do the things he did, and it doesn’t cut you up like _that –”_

She extends a finger to not quite touch Celine’s face. She pulls back.

“He didn’t do that – that woman did – that Constance,” she feels baleful, vengeful almost – after all the other feelings it is a positive pleasure. Clearly Milady sees it written on her face because she snorts derisively.

“And so what? You’ll kill her? You’re no assassin; you’re not even a killer. Besides you’d have done the same in her place. No dear, he left you to get hurt, put the blame where it belongs.”

“Don’t talk about him like that –”

“I’ll talk about him however I want.” Her lip curls. “We don’t all wear our scars so obviously, but I’m not about to take my clothes off for you. Some people know how to leave most of their marks where other men won’t see - ” she sees through Celine’s discomfort as though it is made of glass – “Sound familiar?”

She looks down, ashamed; it does, it sounds far too familiar. All the same, all she hears herself saying is;

“You could ask him for me. You could ask him to take me back.” She is disgusted by her own feeling of hope.

“No I couldn’t,” Milady is as merciless with words as Celine has seen her be with a gun – “He’s dead.”

“What?” her eyes are prickling again. “No – what do you mean dead?”

“I mean –” she speaks slowly as though speaking to a child – “He’s dead. Extremely dead actually, shot by two musketeers and stabbed by another –” she actually breaks off, laughing suddenly as though the poetry of it has just occurred to her. “I mean as dead as can be, and can’t hurt you any more my dear; and I swear if you start crying about that I will slap you in your injured cheek.”

Her face stings at the thought and she manages to hold it back.

“What do I do?” she asks fast and for the millionth time, getting it in while she still has a chance and a person – anyone – to ask – “What do I do now?”

“Now,” Milady sighs, “You stop your bleating and you carry on. You _are_ still beautiful, you know. Honestly – do you think a scar ever stopped anyone?”

Celine frowns, her head starting to clear, it seems to her as though after a very long time indeed. She watches Milady’s fingers rest, almost nervously, at her own throat, seeing the scar there for the first time. Her eyes widen.

“Did he do that?” she whispers.

“No” she smiles mirthlessly – “Not this one. That was – someone else. Someone I –” She makes a curious noise in her throat and reaches down to take Celine’s hand, pull her to her feet. She comes, she wishes she had a grip as strong as that, an intensity in herself.

“That reminds me,” Milady turns away from her, bitterness dripping from her words. “I have a city to get out of. Apparently it’s not big enough for the two of us – oh –” she laughs minutely at Celine’s confusion – “Not you. Good luck – don’t jump off a bridge.”

As though this qualifies for a goodbye she starts to walk away without another word. Celine watches for a moment before picking up her skirts and scrambling after her.

“Wait!” she calls – “Wait – take me with you.”

Milady turns, her eyes glittering, laughing, not entirely unkindly perhaps, but certainly with only minimal patience.

“What? No. Whatever would I do with you?”

“I have – skills I can do things – ”

“You’re a whore. I really don’t think yours are skills I require.”

“I’m a courtesan.”

“You’re a whore. Sarazin wasn’t important enough for courtesans, whatever he may have told himself and you. That’s not a bad thing –” she pauses – “What’s your name?”

“Celine.”

“Celine, be a whore, be a thief, be what you can and love it - or hide behind it if you must, but if you can use it, then use it. Do it on your own terms this time, .not someone else’s. Or don’t. It’s up to you. Use what you’ve got like we all do, but don’t try jumping off any more bridges because that’s just a waste and it’s stupid.”

“But I owe you –”

“You don’t owe me anything, and I _certainly_ don’t owe you. Go. Go your own way, and now – I have to find a horse to steal.”

This time when she speeds up her pace Celine does not try to follow, just watches her disappear into the night, her eyes wide with admiration. _Be what you can_ she said, and she wonders _could I be you?_ She thinks she might not mind that. She thinks she could, she could aspire to be someone, even a specific someone instead of always aspiring to belong to someone. She thinks about Milady asking her what her name was and how nobody has asked her that since she can remember.

Now that her head is clearing she can hear the sounds of the city at night, see the stars in a sky that has never seemed so clear. She thinks about everything she would lose by not being in the world, every taste, every touch, every feel of relief after sadness. She thinks she will be Celine and belong to Celine, even though she has no idea yet who that is.

 _Where do I go now?_ She wonders _What do I do?_ But she asks it of herself and nobody else.

__x__

 

**I originally wrote this line towards the end where Milady’s telling Celine to be what she can be where she said “Or you could start again, trick a rich man into falling in love with you, fall in love with him, be horrifically happy for a short while before he inevitably tries to kill you and ruin your entire life over him – no actually, don’t do that” – but it was a bit too flip, too bordering on crack so I cut it, though she _is_ salty as fuck right at this moment in time. **

**So I have a list of characters I mean to write in this in my head already but please send in requests for girls I may not have thought of (seasons 1 and 2 only, I’m really not interested in 3, for now). For the next chapter I’m tossing up between Fleur Baudin and Camille. :-)**


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

**Camille**

“Camille don’t, they’ll never let us!”

“Yes they will, come on!” she drags Cecile along by the hand, dragging them both back to the garrison.

“Hey – you two!” the Musketeer – the tall one – calls after them – “Where do you think you’re going?”

“We have to see Aramis!” she calls back. Aramis will help, she is sure of it. Oh, she knows the others helped too, but it is still Aramis who stands out to her; the one who came to find – who she is sure would have stolen her away, rescued her right then if Eleanor had not come in when she did.

She is glad now that he did not, grateful to all of them for coming back, for rescuing all of them. Still, she supposes she might have fallen in love with a man like Aramis if she had not already fallen for a girl like Cecile.

Cecile looked soft as a flower, but she had a core as hard as nails. Her eyes had flecks of gold in their depths. When Camille had been thrown into that room full of frightened young girls Cecile had been the only one not crying. She had squeezed her hand and asked her name and there had been something so comforting in both simple actions that she had been able to make herself calm down, even though it should perhaps have been impossible under the circumstances.

“It will be alright,” she had said, though she had not been sure of herself, Camille could tell – “I am sure of it,” she added, making it worse. She was a convent girl, she said, with two of the other girls here. They had been out in the meadow one day when the man – Levesque, Camille knew it was now – had kidnapped them. They were valuable to these people, Cecile said, so she was sure they would not really hurt them.

Camille was not a convent girl and, although her understanding was only vague, it was more than Cecile had as to what it was that made them valuable. She was fairly sure that whatever it was could definitely get them hurt and that was before she even started thinking about Martine. She tried not to think about Martine. Anyway she was not cruel or stupid enough to say any of this to Cecile or the others. So she smiled back at her instead, tight and nervous.

It was not until she thought practically about the fact that they were all going home that she realised she could not bear to say goodbye. It was not until she realised that she could not bear to see her sent back to the convent that she really realised what had happened between them. Even then it was only just now, as the musketeer – Porthos, she remembered his name was – was helping them into the cart, that she knew she had to ask them for still more. She had to at least try.

“Wait there,” she rests her hands on Cecile’s chest, just below the throat, in a gentle pat, kisses her fleetingly on the cheek – “I won’t be long”.

Cecile nods and sits down on a bench at the table in the yard where they had all sat at breakfast that morning. How bright the light had seemed, the group of them loud and laughing after their ordeal, confident in their freedom and in that confidence sure that it would last now, that they would stay safe for the rest of their lives. Her head tries to tell her that this will not really be possible; that she should learn from all of this how precarious a woman’s freedom is. But somehow just now this refuses to be the lesson she will take to heart. She feels strong, victorious, able to do anything. Certainly she can make it so that she can take Cecile home with her rather than her having to go back to the convent.

She has a good memory – she saw Aramis just as they were being gently shepherded out this morning; he was heading up the stairs to what she thinks is the Captain’s office with the walkway overlooking the yard. She takes the stairs at a run and raps smartly on the wooden door before she can think about it too hard.

“Can I help you?”

The musketeer frowns on opening the door to her, looking at her with a wrinkle of confusion – “Shouldn’t you have left with the others?”

He walks out, looking down, sees Cecile at the table, and is clearly on the verge of shouting for the other one, Porthos, to come and get them back.

“No, wait –” she stops him quickly – “We came back on purpose – Cecile and I – we were looking for Aramis.”

He frowns again. She remembers him now, the other one – one of the two who had come to get them that night. The one who had struggled so hard to contain his fury at it all when he realised what was going on. She had liked him for that, trusted him for the honesty of that reaction and risked all of their safety on the strength of that trust.

That still did not mean she found him particularly approachable. Not like Aramis. Athos, she remembered suddenly – that was his name. The one who did not speak as much as the others.

“He’s not here,” he says brusquely, looking at her for a long awkward moment before emitting the smallest of sighs and adding, as though he was doing it against his better  judgement, “Can I help you?”

“I had rather speak to Aramis.” She does not mean that to be rude and realises it sounds more so than she meant it to, but she cannot help but be concerned that this one would not help her like Aramis would. After Eleanor and Lavesque she is becoming a better, more cautious judge of character and she cannot help but feel that this one is pre- occupied – if not actively then certainly in a mentally absent manner.

“You’ve got me,” he shrugs. “Make what you will of it.”

He holds the door for her, she is sure faintly antagonistically – “Come in.”

She can feel him sizing her up, watching her in curiosity as to what she will do. She is not afraid of him; she goes in.

“Now,” he sits down, gesturing for her to sit likewise. She stays standing, lacing her fingers in front of her – “I know I’m not Aramis – I confess, it has always been a failing of mine – but how can I help you? Why did you not go with the others?”

“It’s –” she bites her lip. It occurs to her that the amount of men who would both take her seriously and fail to judge her is small. She only prays he is one of those few. She wishes again that it was Aramis and dives in all the same –

“It’s not me, it’s Cecile –” she finds herself talking very fast – “You see she comes from a convent just outside of Paris and – and well that’s terribly far away from me and it’s not that we’re not grateful for everything you’ve done for us and that you’re sending us home but we wondered you see – _must_ she go back to the convent? Is there anyway – she could – she could come home with me. I’m sure my family wouldn’t mind and and –”

“I see,” he says. She wonders if he does; she can get nothing from his tone of voice.

“It doesn’t work like that I’m afraid,” he says impassively – “We can’t just reassign you different parents.”

“But Cecile doesn’t _have_ any parents – and the convent can’t possibly need her as much –” she falters briefly but continues stubbornly – “As much as I do.”

“You don’t give up, do you? I said we can’t.”

It seems to Cecile as though he does not care at all and that deadpan voice irritates her.

“You’re _musketeers,”_ she insists – “You saved us once, I’m sure you can do it again. You could save anyone if you _wanted_ to.”

She is not sure what she has said or why, but his look changes as though she has hit him. His eyes, previously closed to her, seem to swim and his nostrils flare until she is sure he might actually cry. She runs back what she said to try and find the problem.

“Oh,” she feels terrible suddenly. She doesn’t like this man but she never meant to be unkind – “Oh – you. Oh god, who did you fail to save?” She wishes she could keep her mouth shut just for once, but it is not in her nature and it is too late now. He looks at her with eyes that seem suddenly so lost she likes him all over again. And feels terrible.

“She –” he begins and Camille feels as though she is holding her breath. He shakes his head.

“I’ll write to the convent,” he says hoarsely – “I’ll arrange somewhere for the both of you to stay until it’s arranged.”

She blinks, startled by the sudden transformation.

“Thank you,” she says and when this does not feel like enough “Thank you _so much._ For everything. Really, I didn’t mean –” she can hear the inside of her head yelling at her to _shut up for goodness sake, shut up! –_ as he looks at her impassively – or through her rather. She does not feel as though he sees her there at all. She wants to ask so many things, curiosity clamouring thickly in her mouth, she tries to think of something to say that would both be sympathetic and allow her to ask – _who is she, what happened, is she still alive?_

“Before –” she says – “Back at the house. You were so angry. And I didn’t blame you. But it wasn’t just us was it? It wasn’t us you wanted to save.”

He looks at her helplessly and she sees him about to just say _no._ he closes his mouth on the negative and says instead –

“You’ll do.”

She frowns.

“I’m sorry –” she says – “I’m sorry for asking – but – did she die?”

He looks at her hard and smirks mirthlessly;

“In a manner of speaking.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means –” she can see him weighing up between a yes and a no as though it the toss of a die and does not understand  it – “No.” His eyes are so wide and so sad, she thinks – _I came here to be rescued but he is the one who needs it more._ He looks at her in wonderment as though struggling to understand his own reply.

“No,” he says again, almost a whisper, as though he has to remind himself of this  – “She’s alive.”

Her brain races – _but he still think he failed – he failed to save her and he has done everything he can to save us instead._

“Then there’s still hope,” she says. He looks at her as though she has gone mad – “I mean –” she may as well go on now she has started – “There is always hope, isn’t there? Just because it’s easier to save everyone else doesn’t mean you should stop trying with the one you care about does it? Musketeers are supposed to be _brave.”_

He glares at her in silence and she knew she has landed on the truth of it.

“Leave,” he almost groans it, though there is a tolerance in it she had not expected and almost the ghost of a smile to accompany it – “Did you come here to ask for help or offer it?”

She bites back a quick retort to the effect of her wondering the same thing. Instead she just says _thank you_ again and hops from foot to foot.

“Go!” he makes a shooing motion at her and she all but dances out the door. Outside she waves down to Cecile from the balcony, running down to her, taking the steps two at a time.

“Cecile!” she laughs, taking her by the arms as she jumps up from the bench, all but jumping up and down with her –

“They can do it! They can really do it!” She kisses her face, her forehead, celebratory, bouncing kisses, Cecile laughing, shy but hopeful, more hopeful than either of them can ever remember being. From above the door opens and the musketeer looks down at the two girls with a smile this time, visible to Camille even from below.

She hopes with her heart full to bursting, that everyone can eventually be as happy as she is.

__x__


End file.
